Convergence in Revealed Preferences for Automobiles as Differentiated Goods: U.S. and OECD Countries: 1970–1999

Attributes of differentiated goods in personal consumption have both conceptual and policy importance in macroeconomic applications that include obsolescence rates of capital stock, the savings rate, and environmental issues. While there is both direct and indirect evidence of variation in preferences for these attributes across countries, there is also conjecture that recent global integration has reduced this variation. We examine convergence between the U.S. and four OECD countries in the levels of automobile attributes over the 1970–1999 period. Results of panel unit root tests with the U.S. as the comparison country showed convergence in the constructed measures of size, performance and efficiency. In pairwise comparisons between the U.S. and OECD countries, results of our model estimations indicated convergence in size and efficiency with estimated half lives to convergence of between four to six years. Disaggregating the definitional components of performance, results show convergence in horsepower when selected economic variables are controlled. We find that measures of trade, per capita income and price appear to be among the mechanisms through which increasing global integration relates to convergence. Directions for further study of convergence preferences for attribute profiles across countries are discussed.     

我国地区研发效率的演变和收敛性特征——基于随机前沿方法的分析

随着研发投入的不断加大,我国对研发效率的重视也在逐渐提高。提高研发效率是增强创新能力、提高创新产出的有效途径。文章运用随机前沿分析方法对我国2005-2012年的省际面板数据进行分析,考察了30个省份研发效率的演变趋势以及我国整体和分地区研发效率的收敛性问题。研究结果表明:我国研发效率地区差异较大,且省际之间和各省不同年份之间的波动性都比较大;从整体来说,我国各省研发效率不具有收敛的趋势,但是分地区来看,东部地区研发效率具有收敛性,而中部和西部地区各省份研发效率则不具有收敛性。     

Privatization and Technical Efficiency: Evidence from the Manufacturing Sector in Malawi

This study evaluates the impact of privatization on the technical efficiency of six privatized enterprises, three state‐owned enterprises and six private enterprises competing in three oligopolistic manufacturing industries in which privatization took place between 1984 and 1991 using panel data between 1970 and 1997. Technical efficiency scores are computed using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) based on the ‘intertemporal frontier’ approach for panel data. The results show that privatization in Malawi is associated with high mean technical efficiency in privatized enterprises and competing state‐owned enterprises and private enterprises. If we account for other sources of technical efficiency, in the full sample we find evidence that the competitive process is more important than privatization in increasing the technical efficiency of all enterprises competing in the same industries. However, the results of the subsample of privatized enterprises show that privatization significantly increases the technical efficiency of privatized enterprises, although we cannot ignore the role of domestic competition, capital intensity, multinationality and structural adjustment programmes as sources of technical efficiency.     

Intertemporally dependent preferences and optimal dynamic behavior

We study a model of optimal dynamic behavior in which the intertemoral preferences preserve the time additively separable framework of Ramsey models, while exhibiting Edgeworth–Pareto complementarity between consumption in adjacent periods. We identify economic environments in which global optimal dynamics under intertemporal complementarity exhibits persistent fluctuations even though the misspecified Ramsey-type theory, under the intertemporal independence assumption, predicts monotone convergence.     

From Worldwide Capital Mobility to International Financial Integration: A Review Essay

To be useful to economists, the definition of worldwide financial integration must refer to its welfare-relevant functions or consequences. What ultimately matters is its contribution to the equalization of current and intertemporal trading opportunities, represented by the cost of financial services, at maximum efficiency levels. Analyzing imperfect financial integration implies identifying the obstacles that prevent such equalization, with a lack of perfect capital mobility being only one of the possible impediments. Focusing on how to achieve international equalization, at least cost, of a broad range of financial services is a necessary change for a literature that has tended to rely on single stock, flow, or price correlations to gauge the degree of financial integration, without viewing it as a continuing microeconomic task with many facets.     

基于SFA的我国中东部经济发展效率差异性的实证分析

以10个省1999—2008年的面板数据为基础,运用基于超越对数的随机前沿生产函数模型,分析了中东部经济发展的技术效率、技术进步和全要素生产率,研究发现:中部的技术效率和技术进步要低于东部,中部对资本和劳动力投入的依存度较大,但中部的效率变化值很大,导致全要素生产率大于东部,中东部经济发展差异存在着减小的趋势。     

福建省先进制造业R&D投入产出效率研究

首先对随机前沿函数的变量和形式加以确定。然后采用该函数和面板数据模型,研究了福建省先进制造业的R&D投入产出效率及其影响因素和收敛性。研究结果显示:R&D人员投入、R&D经费内部支出及新产品研发投入对新产品产值产出具有显著效应,其中R&D人员投入的正效应偏大;福建省高新技术产业R&D投入产出效率总体上居中,具有增长趋势和收敛性;九大行业样本期间的企业数量和政府资助对其R&D投入产出效率具有显著影响。最后针对研究中发现的问题,提出企业和政府对R&D发展应该采取的对策和解决措施。     

A GROWTH MODEL FOR SOUTH AFRICA

We examine the South African growth experience during 1960‐2005 using an intertemporal growth model. The model combines old growth theory investment dynamics and new growth theory endogenous productivity growth. The consumption and investment decisions are intertemporal and assume open capital markets. Structural change is captured by separating the traded and nontraded sectors, and sectoral productivity growth is determined in a barriers‐to‐growth framework. Calibration of the model shows how the growth experience combines neoclassical convergence, technology spillovers with barriers and productivity‐investment interaction. Counterfactual analysis shows the growth costs of sanctions and protectionism. The suggested model is an alternative to existing growth modelling in South Africa, in which investments are short‐sighted and productivity growth is imposed exogenously.     

Can Fundamentals Explain Cross-Country Correlations of Asset Returns?

Previous studies show that existing correlations between national returns are higher than correlations between the national growth rates of fundamental variables. This paper examines the ability of intertemporal asset pricing models to explain cross-country correlations of national returns. We find that when capital markets are assumed to be fully integrated, a simple intertemporal general equilibrium model is able to explain the observed co-variability of domestic asset returns but generates too little variability in those returns. Results improve considerably if a less restrictive version is employed. In that setting, both domestic variability and cross-country co-variability of returns are consistent with capital market integration. JEL no. G12, G15, E44     

我国制造业企业的成本效率研究

本文运用了2001与2004年度我国制造业上市公司数据,采取随机前沿技术的成本函数,对254家企业进行成本函数估计得出具体参数值,按平均值分别测算我国制造业上市企业的前沿成本、成本效率、技术效率、配置效率和规模经济性。通过实证考察,结论认为技术效率的相对缺乏,是制造业企业成本非效率的主要因素,且高成本组始终处于较低的效率水平;2004年总体样本显示成本效率主要得益于技术进步,但资源的有效配置不容忽视;此外,规模经济性随着产出规模增加而下降。我国制造业上市公司作为一股"先进生产力"的代表,其成本效率需要前沿技术长期的推进。     

Environmental growth convergence among Chinese regions

Since the end of the 20th century, numerous studies have analyzed Chinese economic development to gauge whether China's rapid growth is sustainable. Most of these studies focused on assessing total factor productivity (TFP) in Chinese mainland provinces but suffered from methodological weaknesses by assuming constant returns to scale (CRS) for the production frontier and/or incorrectly modeling variables returns to scale (VRS) technology taking into account bad output such as carbon dioxide emissions. Our paper offers a right non-parametric programming framework based on weak disposability and VRS assumptions to estimate environmental growth convergence among Chinese regions characterized by size heterogeneity. We explicitly separate regional efficiency gaps into two components: The first studies the technical catching-up process on each one (technical effect), and the second reveals convergence or divergence in the combinations of input and output among regions (structural effect). Moreover, carbon shadow price levels for provinces can be derived through the dual version of our activity analysis framework. Our empirical work focuses on 30 Chinese regions from 1997 to 2010. The results emphasize that environmental growth convergence among regions has mainly relied on the structural effect. We find that the structural effect largely depends on the pollution cost convergence and not on the evolution of the relative prices of capital or labor. The carbon shadow price is increasing at an annual rate of 2.5% and was evaluated around 864 yuan per ton in 2010 in China while regional estimates show significant disparities at the beginning of the period.     

Productivity and economic growth in East Asia: innovation, efficiency and accumulation

This paper uses a varying coefficients frontier production function model to examine the sources of growth between 1987 and 1993 in four East Asian economies—Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea. Using data for 20 manufacturing sectors at the three-digit SIC level, this study provides the first comprehensive examination of sources of growth that allows one to decompose total factor productivity growth, separating out technical efficiency changes (TECs) from technological progress (TP). We find that while there is ample evidence of the importance of increasing inputs in growth, and there is some support for technical efficiency change, or catching up to the frontier over this period, there is weak or even negative evidence for the role of technological progress, measured as a shift in the estimated production frontier.     

The jump‐start of the Holland economy during the late‐medieval crisis,c.1350–c.15001

By c.1500 the Holland economy had already acquired modern traits, as witnessed by the occupational structure and the urbanization rate. This article tries to explain the remarkable development of the Holland economy between 1350 and 1500, linking it to the specific occupation history of the region in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. The combination of high wages in this frontier economy with increasing difficulties in arable agriculture as a result of the subsidence of peat soils, and the absence of feudal restrictions in production and marketing, resulted in the rise of capital‐intensive industries, benefiting from converging wages and increasing market integration.     

东亚金融一体化与消费风险分担的实证研究

本文运用相关性分析和面板数据模型,研究东亚金融一体化进程中国际消费风险分担的水平、动态演进及影响因素,得出金融一体化并未有效推动东亚的国际消费风险分担,其原因与东亚地区金融一体化及贸易开放度较低、金融发展较为滞后、消费平滑的交易成本较高有关。应从发展区域资本市场和借贷市场、完善跨国财政转移支付、提高商品和要素的跨国流动性等方面,完善东亚的国际消费风险分担机制。     

商业银行的前沿效率研究

文章根据随机成本前沿理论,运用面板数据模型（panel date）和多元回归分析方法,测算了我国商业银行的前沿效率值（2000-2004年）,并对其决定因素进行了分析。结果表明,银行效率的提高来源于多元化的产权结构、充足的银行资本金、资产质量、人力资本、市场竞争程度等。     

基于知识图谱的高职产学研研究热点与前沿趋势分析

产学研是国家教育体系中的重要组成部分。为全面了解近20年高职产学研研究现状、研究热点和前沿趋势,以2002—2022年中国知网收录的核心期刊文献为数据源,利用CiteSpace可视化网络工具,从产学研发文情况、研究热点以及前沿趋势等方面进行知识图谱分析。研究结果表明：我国高职产学研研究年发文量呈现先增后减态势,高产的产学研研究机构和专家构成4个较大的合作团队;产教融合、工学结合、校企合作、协同育人、创新创业以及产业学院是当前研究热点;研究前沿主要包括运行机制、内涵建设、创新创业以及产业学院。研究成果可为高职深化产学研协同创新育人提供参考。     

The DEA-stochastic Frontier Analysis of Electric Power Industry

Stochastic frontier analysis is an effective method to analyze the efficiency of DMU, but the decomposition of the error is difficult. By OLS, adopting DEA to dispose the management error of stochastic frontier analysis can resolve the difficulty of the decomposition of the error. By an example of electric power industry, DEA-stochastic frontier analysis is discussed in this paper, and the character of this method is analyzed in the end.     

Productivity, Growth and Economic Integration in the Southern China Region

Since the late 1970s, the economies of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Guangdong and Fujian together have formed one of the fastest growing regions in the world. Rapid growth in trade and investment flows among these economies has led to anincreasingly integrated sub‐regional economic bloc. How has economic integration affected productivity performance among the economies involved? Has regionalintegration led to convergence in growth and efficiency? These are some of the questions that this paper attempts to deal with. Both time‐series and panel‐data models have been employed to examine productivity, technological progress and efficiency in the four economies.     

Technological Diffusion and Productivity Convergence: A Study for Manufacturing in the OECD

In this article is investigated the issue of total factor productivity convergence through international technological diffusion on disaggregate manufacturing panel data from 1970 to 1995 with respect to a set of OECD countries. Estimates of alternate growth equations imply conditional convergence in all industries. Leaving out the conditioning variables still implies a significant catch-up effect in a great majority of industries. These same industries are also characterized by σ-convergence and by a tendency toward a unimodal distribution of relative productivity levels. These results suggest that, during the period of investigation, total factor productivity growth performances in OECD manufacturing were dominated by transitional dynamics. Evidence in favor of the presence of a unit root in the technology gap between frontier and non-frontier countries is, therefore, misleading.     

TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY IN PRODUCTION IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF THE BRAZILIAN PLASTICS AND STEEL INDUSTRIES

This paper estimates firm specific indexes of technical efficiencyfor the Brazilian plastics and steel industries. Two differentindexes are employed for the empirical estimates—the Farrellindex and an index developed from a linear programming approximationof a nonstochastic frontier production function specified inthe Cobb-Douglas functional form. Evidence of substantial relativetechnical inefficiency is revealed. In both industries onlya very small proportion of all the observed firms were producingamounts of output greater than 80 percent of that technicallypossible on the estimated frontier. Relative efficiency of thefirms in the two industries was not seen to be significantlyrelated to ownership (foreign or government), but tests didsuggest a tendency for larger firms, possessing larger marketshares, to be closer to the frontier than smaller firms.